Save Article

Anatomy of a Tour de France Time Trial

A Look at the Strategy Behind the Tour's Stage 4,
Where Stefan Schumacher's Surprise Burst Gave Him the Yellow Jersey

By

Joe Lindsey

Updated July 8, 2008 4:59 p.m. ET

Bicycling Magazine continues its daily dispatches from the Tour de France for The Wall Street Journal with a report from the fourth stage.

CHOLET, France -- Cyclists call individual time trials the race of truth. They provide no peloton for shelter, no teammates to draft behind, and therefore no place to mask a day of bad form. Depending on a rider's aptitude for the format, an individual time trial is either the most eagerly awaited or feared event in cycling. In the context of a three-week race like the Tour de France,...